Today I went upstairs to the Science Lab to watch a presentation given by one of the Rookie Robotics Team member’s father.  His presentation was about a how the rise of waters in the ocean are going to affect New York City.  It was a very interesting presentation and I learned a lot of new things, for example; I learned that massive damage from a hurricane can be prevented by putting up a few environmentally positive islands to minimize the amount of a damage a tidal wave could cause.  What I felt like was amazing about the presentation is that I could see all the time and effort that was put into what they did.  And what they did was pretty amazing.  In short terms, they focused on predicting what would happen if a hurricane were to strike, then what we could do to minimize damage.  I asked many questions, not only to help me better understand the subject but to gain knowledge for my robotics presentation.  I found the whole thing also very motivating, but also somewhat frustrating.  It made me motivated because all the ideas that the presenter put forth were ideas that I though were brilliant, this is also why it frustrated me.  It frustrated me because they could do this so easily, but no one would probably listen to them.  The only question I have, is why focus on preventing the damage, shouldn’t we be more focused on preventing it from happening at all?

Today was AWESOME!!!  Hannah and I showed up at Ollie’s Place (223 East 26th Street) at 1pm, just after they opened up.  After knocking on the door, we were a bit uneasy because no one was answering.  Then FINALLY a woman with short, blonde hair with arms covered in tattoos opened the door.  I waved goodbye to my parents and stepped into Ollie’s Place with curiosity.  The downstairs floor was a cluttered pet supplies shop, with shelves and shelves of things that cat owners need.  In the back there were 6 cages, each one holding one cat.  The woman introduced herself as Jenna, and led us upstairs.  Up there, there were 20 cages and about 24-26 cats, wandering around the medium sized cluttered room.  The floor was covered in cat hair and cat toys, while the cats stared up at us expectantly.  She explained to us that Sundays were “the big cleanup days” and that the two other women who were supposed to help her didn’t show up.  Good thing we came along :p.  She then explained what our jobs were.  We had to take out the bedding inside each cat cage (consisting of a rug, a bed and two blankets) and use a brush to comb the cat hair off.  Seems easy right?  NAHT.  We had to make sure that the bedding from one cats cage, goes back into the same cage.  Jenna explained that this was because the cats were rather territorial, and changing their bedding might upset them.  While we brushed hair, Jenna began to clean the litters and the bottom of the cages.  She explained to us that Ollie’s Place was a no-kill shelter for cats that get sent over from the owner’s ranch in New Jersey (WOOT).  The on the ranch, he rehabilitates both cats and dogs, and then sends them to Mighty Mutts (for dogs) or Ollie’s Place (for cats).  He keeps the really sick, uncureable cats and dogs with him on the ranch and takes care of them there.  Then, when Hannah and I were done, we had to replace all the dry food bowls with temporary bowls and then wash the bowls and put the food back into the bowl in the cage that it came from.  As we were working, we got to know some of the cats such as Willow, Mr. Bing (lol), Solomon, Lena, Mini, Demi, Cupcake, Sunshine, Ava, Milo, the Frollies, Dashel, Shorty, Aggie Pancakes and all the other cats.  We’re even able to tell most of them apart!  Jenna explained the personalities of the different cats, and she really knew her stuff.  By the end of the day, the room was spotless, the animals had food and water, and we were playing with them in the center of the room.  Kit came to check up, and we were finished at around 4 pm.  I LOVED it and I can’t wait to go back!  The cats were all adorable, and some even had some miracle stories (such as cupcake) and most seemed to be able to warm up to Hannah and I rather quickly.  We will be making another date to come help out and visit.  We’ve even thought of what we should do for our sustainability project!  -Amy <br> Some pictures!!Hannah, Jenna, Lady whose name I forget, and Kit! dscn1992.JPG <br>The mess when we first got there! :p dscn1930.JPG <br>After it was all cleaned up!!! 😀dscn1987.JPG

Tuesday was my second trip to the Grand Central Food.  It was basically the same as the first, but this time I was not as nervous.  What is really nice about Grand Central Food is that anyone can get food; you don’t have to be registered, like St. Johns Food Pantry, you just wait outside and when they call you in, you get your food and then leave.  Most people eat their food outside the doors of the place, on the street. 

When I got there I did not help pack bags this time, but instead, I helped give out the extra food like the sandwiches and the sweets.  It was really nice to interact with a lot of people, because for a lot of people, this station is a life saver because it gives them dinner and food to sustain themselves.  After the big group got their food, we moved all the food to the vans and waited for any last stragglers.  I can’t wait till I go in the vans.  Maybe I can go in the vans when I come back on Friday the 12.

Friday was my first day at the Grand Central Food Station. The reason that it is called Grand Central Food is because a woman starved in Grand Central Station, so someone (I am not sure who started Grand Central Food, it could have been Juan De La Cruz) decided to raise awareness by starting the Grand Central Food.  I was a little nervous one the way up because I was going by myself, and I did not know anybody who worked there.  When I got there, there was already a long line outside the building.  I walked inside and I was shown to a small room, where they gave out the food.  I was introduced to everybody, and I started to pack bags, with oranges, bread, soup and milk.  At six o-clock the people came in. They took a bag, a sandwich from another table, and a sweet from one last table.  After about twenty to twenty-five minutes, we had given out food to the main group of people.  There were still some people who came at the last second, but the main rush had past.  At a quarter or ten till seven o-clock, we started to clean up and bring the food outside to the vans.  There were still some people that would come by and we would give them some food from out of the van.  Then at eight o-clock, the vans would close up, and they would bring to food to different areas all over the city.

I have not yet gone to the Birdbath bakery for work, but I have gone to buy food.  It is absolutely amazing and even thought it is slightly out of the way, it is worth it.  Not only is the food amazing, but it is made out sustainable materials and even sever drinks out of corn and are biodegradable.  Also they get all there ingredients for the food they bake from organic local (just outside the city) farm or they are grown organically.    

Lily and I had our first visit to our sustainability organization. We went to 70 little west street in battery park on Saturday the 14th. There was a whole thing on why we couldn’t get there and tried really hard but that is a different story and it was a disaster, but not important. So we called and apologized and and made our appoint on sunday the 15th at 2pm. We arrived at this shinny tall building covered in glass where a lot of light is going in from.  It went pretty well but we didn’t necessarily help out, we just listened and learned from our tour guide, Ann. There was so much interesting information to take in. She first showed us a model building of the building that we were in and showed us the different parts of it and how it is green. There were solar panels in the inside pool, and in many rooms. Then she gave us a tour of a few model homes. The whole building was surrounded by bamboo and the carpets were made out of recycled materials. The Visionair made sure that their wood was only 500 miles away of shipping so the trucks doesn’t need so much gas and oil. The building had rain forrest harvesting and there was a lot of platinum which is the best you can have for a green building. There were so many little things that made the building green. The fridges have different motors and it is really hard to open because of how tight it is, it saves cold air from coming out which saves a lot of energy. All of the lights are energy saving. All of the wood floors had been harvest, all of the sink faucets are filtered so you can drink out of all of them, even the bath tub. The tiles are so beautiful , you would never think that they are made out of recycled material. Even the elevator saved energy. There were so many things that saved energy that just made the building so green. They really showed that you can have a beautiful modern nice building and have it be one of the most “green” buildings to live in. I learned a lot and really enjoyed it. The tour went on for about 45 to 1 hour. 

This week Thomas (my partner) and I have sent out a new group of emails to organizations regarding water, some of which include, Charity Water, Taking Back the Tap, and Tap’dNY. We are just starting to receive emails after Presidents Day Weekend.I was in contact with Charity Water today, and I found out something very interesting-They want to “give 100 schools in developing nations clean water and get students around the world connected to schools in need.” Our school is the 70th to get involved with them so far in 2009.  I think my emails were as Sarah said they should be-crisp but to the point.

This week Thomas (my partner) and I have sent out a new group of emails to organizations regarding water. Some of which include, Charity Water, Taking Back the Tap, and Tap’d NY. We are just starting to recieve emails after presedents day weekend.I was in contact with Charety Water today, and found out something very interesting,-They want to “give 100 schools in developing nations clean water and get students around the world connected to schools in need.” Our school being the 70th so far in 2009.  I think my emails were as Sarah said they should be-crisp but to the point. I hope they don’t think I’m a slacker for writing too little though… Hopefully the next time I write I can talk about a visit to one of these organizations. I think that when we go, we should be prepaired with questions. I think Thomas and I need to get together and goo over emails that we’ve sent. We also need to set up our interviews.  

Today I went to meet with Carey and her intern, Amanda, from LESEC, at their 7^th Street composting drop off garden (between avenue B and C).  Carey showed me how people drop off bags of compostable items into a bin by the gate.  She then took them out of the bags and put the compostable items into different bins.

Then we went to another public composting garden, La Plaza Cultural on Avenue C.  At that garden I saw large vermicomposting bins.  Vermicopmposting is composting with red wiigle worms.  In one metal bin there were the greens (biodegradable food), in the other metal bin there were browns (tree branches) and then they were mixed together in the third metal bin.  After a couple of weeks the mixture is transferred to three large wooden cratess with red worms.  We churned and mixed the compost with a compost crank and a garden fork.  It’s crucial to churn and mix to get air moving within the compost otherwise it doesn’t break down into organic material.  The worms eat the food, then poop it out which decomposes the food.  At the same time bacteria (which needs air) breaks down the mixture even more.  One thing that Carey said that was very interesting was that the red worms are not put in the compost, they just find their way to the compost where they plant more eggs, which creates more worms.  It takes three months to a year for the material to compost in the wooden crates.  She also showed me a compost tumbler with an air tube inside that makes composting go even faster.

Question: Why do you do all this?
Answer: Waste reduction, and you also get free compost material to grow more plants. I asked Carey what the difference is if you throw an orange (for example) out in a landfill vs. composting it.  She said that biodegradable food decomposes improperly in a landfill.  “Anaerobic”, meaning without air, is how she described it.  The garbage gets all smushed together without air and releases methane and ammonia, which are greenhouse gases.Then we walked over to the library and sat down and we talked about the other things LESEC does:

• Electronic Waste Recycling and Advocacy
  • E-Waste drop off dates are on their website
  • Helped have a bill passed so that companies that make electronics are responsible for recycling them·
• Stewardship
  • Volunteer days where people can paint, decorate, compost in their public gardens
• Environmental Education
  • Estuary Education (The East River is an estuary)-different classes where students come and learn about the rivers
• C.H.E.R.P.
  • Citizens Hooked on East River Park
• Go into schools and teach about climate change

There are several possible volunteer opportunities.  In the end of March and beginning of April, they will be conducting a survey at the Farmer’s Market at Union Square.  It’s a compost drop off survey so they can find out where people who compost are living and composting, so in the future LESEC can set up more composting drop off centers.  Right now, there is compost collection at the Union Square Green Market- Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 8am to 5pm.  I collected a lot of information from LESEC and I think that we could do a lot of good work with them! 🙂 

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I learned that animals are good for tickling

lalalalalalalalalalalala

i learned that animals are good for tickling

testing testing bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla bla hahahahahaha hehehehehehe 

i dont know what my group is 

Today turned out really well in my opinion. I thought that all of the 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th graders learned a lot today about what sustainability means and what they can do to improve it. It was a great experience to teach the kids about what we’d been studying for so long. It’s the first time I’ve really felt like I could do something with my learning and help out the community by telling everyone about sustainability. I didn’t really think the day could’ve gone any better and I’m very pleased with the way everything went.

Today was finally the day of learning! I was really excited about my and Gaia’s workshop. I knew a lot of people had wanted to be in it, and I was looking forward to seeing who would there. The workshop started off a little rocky, because everyone wanted to do the same recipe, and we didn’t have enough of the ingredients for that many people to do it. However, we soon cleared it up, and people made several different recipes, in groups or pairs. Almost everything went well. It all looked good, worked, and smelled AMAZING. The rest of the day was interesting and fun. I especially liked the cake! I think the day went well in general, and I’m looking forward to seeing future days of learning.

Even though the day went pretty well. I could not stand some of the kids. Some of them were whiny and complainy and all that stuff. i do not know how you teachers can deal with us. we horrible! my GOD! well….. not anymore…..for some of us.

The day of learning was fun and worked out a lot better then I thought it would. The people in our workshop were respectful and paid attention when we were talking. All of our group members did what they were assigned and we had fun. I enjoyed hearing Josh talk about other schools and how they were sustainable. I also learned a lot about how much we waste and how we can recycle.

P.s I also enjoyed watching the short videos about sustainability.

From Aaron

what: 8th grade day of learning

where: LREI

When: April 30, 2008

Yesterday was reeeaaaallly tiresome. But it surprisingly went well. at first i was really nervous about the whole ‘teaching little children’ thing, but it wasn’t so bad……that is….until Henry, Aliza and I brought out the candy. That’s one thing that we learned that day, other than all those cool facts about sustainability, that you should NEVER take out 6 bags of open candy in front of 13 kids consisting of 5th and 6th graders. Our first workshop didn’t go very well. It was just really awkward and we weren’t that prepared for them. The second workshop however, went perfectly well. We were a lot more prepared for what was coming to us then we were the first time around. We collected a lot more materials by the second workshop time and we actually knew what to say and how to be more understandable. So it basically went pretty well if you count out the candy fiasco.

P.s- No matter what people say. I never want to teach ^-^”

P.s.s- I’m not saying it’s a bad job or anything. It’s just that I’m not that patient with kids.

WOW!!! I will never be a teacher. Some of the children from the 1st group were extremely uncooperative. Quinn, Cole, Robbie, and I were exhausted. We even had to throw one child out. The second group went better because we learned from our mistakes. We told them that they couldn’t eat the candy at all, but then we gave it to them at the end. Overall the day went well, i enjoyed myself and learned why teachers can be mean, Kids are horrible to teach. I am going to try hard not to give teachers a hard time with my conduct. The day really changed my views on things.

I was a little nervous about the day of learning, whether or not people would understand why we needed to reuse the starburst wrappers, whether people would understand how to make the bracelets and enjoy to workshop, however my thoughts were not at all justified. It turned out to be incredibly fun, and people were really starting to think about reusing materials and asking some interesting questions. Phil helped facilitate the conversations upon entering the room and quizzing us on how this was sustainable, when we bought the starburst instead of reusing ones we had already gotten. People started throwing around ideas and coming up with ways it both was, and wasn’t sustainable. I think it went very well and I was very relieved that all the hard work and speculation came out positively. 

The day of learning was a fulfilling fun day. It was very interesting learning about how hard it is to be a teacher. For me it was very easy and I was very prepared for my workshop. It was so fun to engage with the kids and show them your ideas. It is also a great feeling when people are interested in what you are doing and have prepared. As for the day, it was amazing for students taking action and i was intrigued by the speakers. I think it was a great experience for the younger kids because I think that they all really loved the workshops. I also thought that it is so so important to teach the younger students about how important this is because we all share the next generation. I loved how enlightened Josh was about all off this and he had, had hands-on experience with sustainability as we did and it made me feel more like an adult. I thought that the whole school was also very impressed with us and all off our knowledge and hard work about these topics. At the end of the day I was very proud (even though it felt like a Friday). 🙁

This past Saturday was Lili’s, Sam’s, Hannah’s and my last day working as a group at the farmers market. It made me sad that most people would totally quit doing sustainable community service after the Day of Learning. Even though I have known the farmers for my entire life, this experience has been unlike any other. The people who work with the Greenmarket really appreciated kids who actually cared about the community. They made us feel really needed, and after working there for four monthes, it feels so good to have helped these kind, hardworking farmers make their living. Working with Dave, Lynn, Karen, Liz, Davy and Emily I realized how special being able to really assist people is. I’ve learned so much from these farmers: about what it takes to have a farm, to have a family, and to work at the farmers market three times a week. The last few times I’ve gone to the farmers market I’ve worked with Dave, “the honey guy.” He owns Berkshire Berries. His stand sells all kinds of jams and jellies, maple syrup, wild flower honey, and even honey that is made in Manhattan! Throughout the past weeks i have seen his bees(they were so amazing), organized his extremely messy truck, made sales, and all together had a fabulous time chatting with him, laughing about crazy customers, and tasting everything. He really needed my help some days when he was selling by himself, and it made me really proud this past Saturday when he fell asleep in his truck and I ran the enitre stand for two hours. I really have learned so much during this project, and I hope to always have this important connection to the Greenmarket, and continue working there, if more sporadically.

I though that the day of learnin went well. I was in the solar shop with David and Nicholas. We started off by explaining what we would be dooing during this time and what solar enerrgy was. We then started to work on our solar cars. After every one was outside we tested our cars. We didn’t race them because at first the cars weren’t moving well outside. A little bit of the time was spent fixing the rubberbands on the car. The cars evebtually worked and we ran them outside. I felt that the teacher somwhat ran the program. I know that they were there in order to help us but I feel like he interupted more times than needed

In total, the day of learning was a sucess. It was very satisfying to see everybodys hard work come together in a way that was beneficial to the entire middle school. One thing I hope that will come out of the day of learning is people wanting to help the community, and actually understanding what it means to be sustainable. My group’s workshop went really well. It was interesting to see how our script changed for the better as we went along, and how much the people in our workshop effected the overall learning experience. I think that most people did learn something, and had fun eating the delicious fruit salad we had them make. It was also a good idea to have three people reflect at the end, because it was a way for the students to sum up what they had learned in their own words. The prize muffins were also delicious. One thing that could have gone differently was that we had too much fruit, and we hadnt predicted well whow much every kid would eat. Otherwise, everything was absolutely great.

My workshop went really well.  All the kids loved the bracelets and especially the candy!  We listened to music and it was a really relaxed environment.  The teachers who supervised our workshop also loved making the bracelets.  It also pleased them that we were playing appropriate music that was from their era…

Today was the day of learning!

Gaia and I went shopping for our workshop.

Gaia and I went shopping for our workshop today, at Lifethyme, this health food store near my house. Hannah came with us. The store was really amazing. It was filled with various organic foods and other natural items. There was also a juice bar in the back. We went upstairs and got essential oils and coconut oil. We also got coconut milk and oats. We then went to my house and crushed the oats in a food processer.

On 4/30 I taught kids from the fifth, sixth, and seventh grades about malaria through jeopardy. I made a master sheet for myself. I had all the malaria related questions, the answers and their difficulty level. I did the activity with Aaron, Mickey, and Zaran. We all played a part in the process. Aaron told the students what malaria was, Zaran kept score, I explained the rules and read the questions, and Mickey kept time. Some of the questions were about history involving rulers that were infected by Malaria, their statistical questions, and there were science questions about the parasite and how it infects the body. I really do think that a lot of the kids walked away with a full understanding of the disease and what they could do to help out. At the end of the two periods we had a question and answer time. Most of the kids wanted to talk to their friends and hang out. I understood this. After class, all I want to do is talk to my friends, not have a thorough discussion of what we did and learned. Knowing this first hand from being a student. I had decided to let them relax for a few minutes. However, something struck me as I saw a fifth grader raise her hand in the back of the room. Everyone quieted down to let the girl speak. I called on her and I just heard her shy little whisper of, “What can I do to help the kids in Africa?” I was stunned in the best way possible. I had made a kid question, and that to me was amazing.

Without a doubt, I learned way more about teaching yesterday than the 5th, 6th, and 7th graders did about sustainability. The first workshop didn’t go so well, with one group just playing around and eating candy, and the other group doing exactly what we wanted them to do. We (Quinn, Cole, Manny, and I) realized that it had less to do with the children (although it did a bit) than with our actions. Cole prepped one group, going down the list we had given them and giving them certain tasks, while the other group was immediately given a house and started working. They were floundering, and in the end, barely ended up with a house. Some part of it was definitely due to the children, and apparently they annoyed other groups too, but I definitely learned a bit. For the second group, we talked to them both individually before hand, and had two people with each group throughout the workshop. Another thing I learned was that if something doesn’t go as planned, you have to accomodate quickly. Originally it was planned for each workshop to be working on one house, and so only two were built. Somehow, the first workshop ended up with both, and each group (one meant to be working on the outside of one house, and the other on the inside) worked on one whole house. With no houses for the second house, Cole had to create a haphazard nightmare of a house to work on in under 10 minutes, and we had to scrap the house of the group that didn’t work and make it new again. In the end, both groups pulled through better than we had ever expected, and I think they enjoyed the workshop. If Victor and Janis hadn’t monitored the kids and helped out a tremendous amount, it wouldn’t have ended up nearly as well.
In reflection, I thought that although the Day of Learning was good, it could’ve been much better, and things like the film should’ve been better organized.

-The Rob

The day of learning was yesterday and it was a eventful day for the entire middle school. We had two meetings that began and ended the events. Our group did our project but it could have been a better. The 5th, 6th, and 7th graders weren’t very interested in the project but it was still as informative as we could have made it. The completed work represented how our group worked togeather when doing our tree collages and the canvas was a full forest. After the two group activities we had the second meeting where two represntatives that some of my classmates worked with talked about what they do and how that works with sustainability and what message the send out to other people. In middle school meeting, the last representative had came and told us about his experiances. He is a professional and has viewd many schools making a difference in our environment. He also showed us some statistics and gave examples of how we can help in the urban area we live in. It was an inspriring talk and i started thinking of ideas of how our school can go beyond what we are already doing to help. I was thinking we can have a greenhouse on the sections of the roof that aren’t used by the playground or to take away the part of the playground to put in the greenhouse. All grades could add to it and see it grow and change. It would be benificial to a lot of our subjects, including lunch, and would save the school money. That was just one of my ideas from listening while the mad described the other schools that had made ideas to change their own community.

The whole day I taught kids about malaria.

Yesterday was a fun and eventful day. My group had to build models of a room in the school and make it nore green. I was happy that people learned something and had a good time building their models. I alsorealized how hard teaching can be. I also learned how inportant it is to save the environment and how many places help the world in many ways, always having a big inpact. I was also amazed at what was said to us in our classrooms and how hard it is for the world and how we keep polluting it. I was amazed yesterday the entire day. I was also very happy when we got cake after. It made the whole project a little better.

Overall, our workshop went pretty well. I had a few fears of not having enough kids in it, but we had a lot. Apparently the blurb we wrote worked. It was fun seeing the kids try and answer the easy, medium, and hard questions from their memory; it proves that we were teaching them something. The idea of giving them a sheet with all of the answers for two minutes before the questions start seems to have worked the best for teaching them the facts about malaria. I also had worries about the actual quiz not lasting long enough, but it took 15 minutes because we added the Final Jeopardy. (Kids would bet their points on a question at the end) Also, during the five minute long parts where my workshop members and I had to talk, we did not make any mistakes about what we said. We gave each workshop member a subject, and they explained it and connected it to what I and the others said.

The Day of Learning was something I was confused about for a while. I didn’t quite understand what we would be doing, but the activities that were planned worked very well and I am happy we made movies and taught workshops.